[4968] in testers
Re: erratic host lookup failures
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Thomas H. Grayson)
Tue Jul 10 06:36:43 2001
Message-Id: <200107101036.GAA28394@mansard.mit.edu>
To: Mitchell E Berger <mitchb@MIT.EDU>
cc: Nickolai Zeldovich <kolya@MIT.EDU>, testers@MIT.EDU
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Tue, 10 Jul 2001 01:51:24 EDT."
<200107100551.BAA26900@byte-me.mit.edu>
Date: Tue, 10 Jul 2001 06:36:39 -0400
From: "Thomas H. Grayson" <thg@MIT.EDU>
I've also seen this sort of behavior on my office PC, which is running
Windows 2000, using either IE 5.5 SP1 or Netscape 4.7x. I've always
attributed it to network latency. Sometimes with IE it refuses to
recheck the site when I refresh the page, forcing me to add an extra
slash (/) at the end to trick it into trying again, which then almost
always works promptly.
Tom
> From: Mitchell E Berger <mitchb@MIT.EDU>
> Date: Tue, 10 Jul 2001 01:51:24 -0400
> Subject: Re: erratic host lookup failures
>
> > Most often I see this bug in Netscape, whereby trying to access
> > a page on a certain host for the first time causes a pause, then
> > a message:
> >
> > Netscape is unable to locate the server <hostname>.
> >
> > after which repeated attempts to load the same URL quickly fail for a
> > few seconds, and then the next attempt will pause, and resolve correctly.
> > Subsequent accesses to pages on the same host resolve immediately.
>
> This failure (I'm presently only speaking of seeing it with Netscape) is not a
*n Athena bug. It happens with approximately the same frequency you're seeing
*it on my machine at home, which is running Solaris 8 x86 (not Athenized Solari
*s) and Netscape Communicator 4.7. I was under the impression that Netscape ha
*d its own hostname resolver, so I convinced myself that it's simply set to tim
*e out too quickly, and actually remembers the true resolution once it comes in
*, which is sometimes after it's already told you it can't find the host. That
* explains the instant success time later, but may be an irrational assumption
*for other reasons.
>
> Unfortunately, I fail to remember whether I saw it either when my home machine
* was running Solaris 7 x86, or on an Athena 8.4 machine. However, this admitt
*edly doesn't begin to account for your observance of the problem with lynx, te
*lnet, and finger, and I don't believe I've ever experienced that (though I don
*'t do nearly as much with them as with Netscape on my home machine).
>
> Hopefully this'll be useful in some way while piecing together the puzzle.
>
> Mitch
>
>
